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Puff Pastry
Updated: Feb 15
WHAT IS PUFF PASTRY?
Puff pastry also known as Pâte Feuilletée in French is categorized as one of the two main "Laminated Pastries", Croissant being the other one. It is a "Laminated" pastry mainly due to the way that it is made, which is by creating multiple layers of butter and dough through the process called "Lamination".
When puff pastry is baked in the oven, the water in the butter will start to evaporate and turn to steam, pushing and separating the dough layers whilst the butterfat will keep the layers of dough from sticking from one another giving you the crispy multi layers of baked pastry.
In the process, a Détrempe (main dough) is made and a separate butter sheet is rolled to a even thickness with the dough before being enveloped by the dough. The method of enveloping the butter with the dough is called "Locking In". This locked in dough is then rolled to a specified length and then folded on to one another, creating multiple layers. A typical Puff Pastry can have a ranges of between 500 - 700 layers depending on the total of folds involved.
You can fold the dough in a number of different ways and the two most common ways are called the " Single Fold / Letter Fold" and "Double Fold/ Book Fold".
LAMINATION
Lamination or Laminated doughs refer to pastries that are made by layering dough and butter together multiple times so that when they are put in the oven to bake, the fat layer in the butter will start to separate the dough layers and causes them to puff up and create a flaky pastry.
A typical puff pastry will require that you do 6 x single turn with resting period in between in the fridge.
TEMPERATURE OF BUTTER AND DOUGH FOR LAMINATION
When doing the lamination, the temperature and consistency of both the dough and butter sheet is important to ensure that you have an even layer of butter and dough in your puff pastry. Depending on how much water you have added into your dough, the best guideline would be that the consistency, pliability and feel of the dough should be if not as close to, as similar to the consistency, pliability and feel of the butter sheet.
If you follow the recipe and ingredients below as instructed, I find that the dough and butter are best laminated at the temperature at 6˚C -9˚C for the dough and 14˚C - 16˚C for the butter sheet.
If you are using butters with a lower melting point such as the ones that are not catered for puff pastries, it is recommended that you use the butter at a lower temperature of between 12 - 14˚C as the butter tends to go softer at a higher temperature than the one mentioned.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PUFF PASTRY AND CROISSANT PASTRY
The make up of Puff Pastry and Croissants are similar in the way that they are made by laminating butter in between dough and stacking the dough on top of one another by doing multiple folds to create alternating layers of dough and butter.
A few different points between the two pastries are as follow:
Croissants
- Contain Yeast and sugar
- The makeup of croissants are : Flour, Butter, Sugar, Water/milk, Egg, Yeast
- Usually consist of 3 total "Single Turns"
- Croissant has a light doughy interior and flaky on the exterior after being baked
- Is also considered a yeast dough
- Common ratios for Croissants are = 1 Part Butter : 1 Part Liquid : 2 Part Flour
Puff Pastry
- Do not contain yeast
- The only makeup of puff pastry are Water, Flour and salt
- Has an overall flaky texture after being baked.
- Usually consist minimum of 6 "Single/Half" turns.
- Is not considered as a yeast dough
- Common ratios for Puff Pastry are = 2 Part Flour : 2 Parts Butter : 1 Part Water
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HALF FOLD AND DOUBLE FOLD
One "Single Fold/Turn" typically will give you 3 layers of butter and 4 layers of dough, whereas a "Book Fold/ Double Fold" will give an additional layer summing up to 4 layers of butter with 5 layers of dough.
With a single turn, the dough is rolled out to a certain length, with one end folded to 1/3 of the way to the centre, then folding the other end on top.
On the other hand, a "Book Fold" is done by rolling the dough out to a certain length and with both ends folded 1/4 towards the centre meeting both ends together then folding the dough over in half again.
SINGLE FOLD / LETTER FOLD
DOUBLE FOLD / BOOK FOLD
